DENVER -- For the second straight night, the Cubs did their part in St. Louis and the Brewers failed to capitalize. Now, the National League Central race comes down to the final day of the regular season.

Lorenzo Cain’s defensive wizardry wasn’t enough in a 3-2 loss to the Rockies in 10 innings on Saturday at Coors Field that hurt in any number of ways. Cain was lost to a left ankle injury on a disputed play at the plate in the top of the ninth inning, and Josh Hader couldn’t finish a save in the bottom of the inning with just one more out needed, leading to a loss on Trevor Story’s leadoff, walk-off home run in the 10th off Matt Albers that left Milwaukee one game back of St. Louis in the division with one game to play.

• Box score

The banged-up Brewers’ best hope is to extend the regular season to a Monday afternoon tiebreaker game at Busch Stadium to decide the NL Central. But if they lose to the Rockies on Sunday or the Cardinals avoid a three-game sweep against the Cubs, Milwaukee is headed to Washington, D.C., for the NL Wild Card game against Max Scherzer and the Nationals on Tuesday night.

“It was laid on the table for us,” Cain said. “Everything played out exactly the way we wanted, but we didn’t do our part as far as the first two games here. It’s tough to not get it done when the opportunity is there. There’s no quitting here. We have to continue to fight, continue to battle. We’ll see what happens.”

• MLB standings

Adrian Houser will start Sunday’s finale for the Brewers, who appear to be preserving top starting pitchers Brandon Woodruff and Jordan Lyles for potential games on Monday against the Cardinals, if needed, and Tuesday should they play the Wild Card Game. But the position-player group is depleted. Ryan Braun is out until Monday at the earliest because of a calf injury. Cain sounded uncharacteristically pessimistic about his ankle. And while third baseman Mike Moustakas played on Saturday, he is bothered of late by a sore throwing elbow.

Those issues make the possibility of overtaking the Cardinals and resting up for an NL Division Series against the Braves even more enticing.

But it is an uphill climb.

“It’s a tough loss,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “We play tomorrow. There’s going to be more games after that. We’re playing to force a 163 tomorrow. Lot to play for tomorrow. ... We’ve come in here a whole bunch of nights [in the past] and pulled out some pretty amazing wins. Tonight just didn’t go our way.”

There were many examples of that, but first the developments that put the Brewers in position to win. Eric Thames homered as Milwaukee built a 2-0 lead, and it looked like Cain had saved the day with a pair of highlight-reel catches. In the sixth, he dove for an inning-ending out with a runner aboard in a 1-0 game. In the seventh, he leaped to rob Garrett Hampson of a tying, two-run home run in a 2-0 game.

But there were too many bad moments for the Brewers on Saturday.

Here were some of them:

Bad moment No. 1: Yasmani Grandal was thrown out at home plate for the second out of the sixth inning. He’d walked for a team-leading 109th time before Moustakas doubled down the right-field line. Third-base coach Ed Sedar waved Grandal home -- “100 percent” the right call, Counsell said. Grandal, running out of gas, tried to slide around the tag of Rockies catcher Drew Butera, but Grandal never touched home plate and was called out after a replay review.

Bad moment No. 2: After making the first of his beautiful catches, Cain ambled to second base on a one-out double before trying to steal third. But Rockies pitcher James Pazos stepped off the rubber and threw to third for an easy out. That cost the Brewers a run, as Ben Gamel followed with a base hit.

Bad moment No. 3: Ian Desmond homered in the eighth inning off left-hander Drew Pomeranz, who hadn’t been charged with a run in 18 of his previous 19 appearance stretching back before his trade from the Giants to the Brewers, including 10 scoreless outings in a row. That cut Milwaukee’s lead to 2-1.

Bad moment No. 4: Cain singled with two outs and chugged all the way around the bases on Gamel’s double but was out at home -- and injured to boot -- on a hard slide into catcher Tony Wolters. The play was reviewed to determine whether Wolters violated the blocking rule, but the out was confirmed. When Counsell protested, he was ejected.

“We shouldn’t even be reviewing it if you’re not going to overturn that,” Counsell said. “If you’re not going to overturn [that particular play], why is there a rule? Tell me what the rule is for.”

Said Cain: “He blocked the plate, so I had nowhere else to go but straight into him. I don’t know. I guess it’s either run him over or slide into the plate. I chose to slide and we still didn’t get the call.”

Bad moment No. 5: Hader had trouble with the long ball back in July, but he had righted that issue lately and was two strikes away from a 13th consecutive successful save when he fired an 0-1 fastball up in the zone to Rockies pinch-hitter Sam Hilliard.

“I did get into the cage right before my at-bat and I turned the machine up all the way to try to get the spin rate simulated a little bit,” Hilliard said. “And it took me about 20 swings to not foul one off.

“I finally fouled one off and said, ‘Let’s go. I’m ready.’”

The left-handed hitter’s tying home run sailed the opposite way to the left-field seats.

“Exactly where I wanted it,” Hader said of the pitch, which was a fastball high in the strike zone. “He got a bat on it and elevation took it from there. Like I’ve said before, there’s times you execute your pitch and the result is what you didn’t want. It’s baseball. Nothing we can turn back now. We have to finish out strong tomorrow and take us to the playoffs.”

It comes down to Sunday.

“We’ll have a clear plan,” Counsell said. “We know what’s at stake and what could happen. We’ll account for all those things. That’s how we’ll treat it. The games are all happening at once. You’ll watch [the Cardinals] game. That’ll instruct you. We’ll see how it goes.”